_Pragmatics

Cooperation and Implicature

Bush and the Gricean Maxims

Like many other politicians, the American President George W. Bush sometimes appears to be less eloquent in public speeches and it occurs that he violates almost all of the four Gricean Maxims. The video linked at the bottom of this page starts off with a clip from his State of the Union address.

• Listen carefully to the video clip and figure out which of the Gricean maxims Bush violates most frequently.
• State the other maxims he is violating and explain why.